18 April 2018

Mark + Vinny's Spaghetti & Spritz, Surry Hills (17 April 2018)

Spaghetti & Spritz BarThanks to Pendulum Communications for the invite to a menu tasting. But first it's refreshments of The Pash Me Spritz - Vermouth bianco, passionfruit, prosecco, soda ($18)and the classic Florence Spritz - Aperol, Prosecco, Fever Tree Soda ($16). Both enjoyed and there's plenty of other Spritz variations on the menu to tempt. Starters consisted of a few of vegan dishes. Cece - Chickpea hummus, farro, schiacciata ($14) was tasty and easy to share and the Caprese - Soy mozzarella, heirloom tomato, basil, lemon vinaigrette ($18) could probably fool a few like myself with its soy-based cheese. The Fiori di Zucca - Zucchini flower, smoked almond curd, romesco ($15, 2 pieces) had an excellent crispy batter and was one of my favourite dishes of the day. Back to something meaty was the Polpette - Adrian’s meat balls, slow cooked tomato sugo ($18, 3 pieces) that was good but comes at a price of $6 a meat ball so probably best not to expect to fill up on this dish alone.Pushing the flavour boundary for a vegan pasta is the Charcoal Bucatini - Smoked mushroom pancetta, vegan egg yolk, plant based parmesan ($26). I enjoyed the richness and clever vegan egg yolk although it might take me a while to get used to the mild gritty texture of the charcoal in this dish. The Blue Spirulina Tagliatelle - Blue swimmer crab, bottarga, pangrattato ($34) had gutsy crab and bottarga flavour with plenty of garlic added for good measure. The eye-catching greenish blue colour is probably setting itself up to be one of their signature instagrammable dishes. Back to another vegan pasta the Zucchini Linguini (The Impasta) - Chickpea ragu, cherry tomato, slow cooked tomato sugo ($22) is gluten free and retains a pleasant crunch from the zucchini and crispy pop from some deep fried chick peas. Hard to go past the Vegan No-tella Ravioli - Cacao nibs, raspberry, coconut ice-cream ($18) for dessert. A flakier pastry is the only thing that could improve this for me. I didn't realise Nutella wasn't vegan so this housemade No-tella hits the spot as a vegan friendly substitute. Mark Filippelli, Vince Pizzinga and chef Adrian Januloski have certainly created quite a unique menu for Sydney diners and I like how there's a good selection of both vegan and non-vegan dishes which I think will suit a wider audience.

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Simon Leong

Passionate Sydney food blogger in search of the best dishes around the world and writing reviews to whet your appetite. Feel free to email me your recommendations of where to eat simonleong[at]hotmail[dot]com